The two outer poles have 9 modules, and pole in the middle has 8. The run of underground conduit is 540 feet, which goes through goat fields, under electric fences, crosses a stream strapped to the bottom of a bridge and comes out under a porch.

The job was a challenge not only due to the distance from the house and inverter, but also because of the sloping ground that the pole mounts were located on. The Bobcat had to dig three holes, three feet in diameter and eight feet deep, which were filled with concrete and gigantic metal pipes. This was difficult on the wet, sloping ground.

The system is in and producing above expectations. The seasonal adjustability of the pole mounts, along with the fact that open arrays run cooler, makes for a system that cranks out the kilowatt hours!

We expanded Rick & Linda’s original system to bring to total power up to 8.3 KW.  The upper roof had room for 2 more Sharp 224 Watt modules, which were added.  The lower roof was able to hold 13 Upsolar 225 Watt modules utilizing both portrait and landscape orientation.

Enphase micro inverters were used for the new array.  This allows the use of different modules at different orientations.

The oval box next to the PV Powered inverter is the Enphase Envoy, which is used for monitoring the output of the Enphase micro inverters.

Roger has an all-electric house, and has kept his house quite cool in the winter to save money and reduce the carbon footprint.  Now he has the power to meet his needs.

The array was kept to the West end of the roof, to avoid morning shade from trees that were not on his property.  The low roof slope will allow for the best solar irradiation in the summer, when the array is hot.  Summer heat lowers the output of the array, but the long days and low slope will capture maximum energy during that season.  With his net metering contract, he receives credit for high winter heating loads.

The empty space in the array allows a vent pipe to exit without obstruction.   The location of the opening was carefully designed to avoid having the pipe cast a shadow on the array.  The siting of the array was designed around the location of the vent.  We have plans to make a dummy module to fill the space, for aesthetic purposes.

The Sunny Boy 2500 HFUS inverter sends power directly to the grid, or when the grid is down, can backfeed the two Outback 3524 VFX inverters, thus charging the battery bank.

This system is designed to fill approximately 100% of the current annual usage.  If more loads are added, up to 3 more modules can be added to this versatile, high frequency inverter.

The array is mounted above a 40 degree pitched slate roof that is 19 feet from the ground to the eves.

The two small modules are battery bank maintainers.

It is hoped to produce the majority of the power needed to operate the facility.

The home is highly insulated and used an electric heat pump with a thermal well. It also features solar windows. It is hoped to be close to a “Net Zero” building in its energy usage. The 39 REC 230 Watt PV Modules are mounted to a standing seam roof.